AISP, the poem (by request)

 Back in May of 2010, I attended a reunion of students from my Toronto high school, AISP — the Alternative Independent Study Program. I don't know how I would have survived the school system without that place.

Someone on social media this week asked to see the poem again, so here it is. 

AISP

 

Did I ever tell you about this school

a school made up entirely of initials:

 

Apples In Silver Purses

Astronauts Integrating Small Pandas

Ask In Sequence Please

Agatha Ivanov Speaks Portguese

 

It was a free school

and we were free

to create our own learning

to call our teachers by their first names

to hang a parachute from the ceiling of the Common Room

(until a fire marshal told us otherwise)

 

We were free to rebel

to make super 8 films

to scream sound poems in the hallways

to make Xerox art in Dorothy’s office

to make comic books instead of essays

comics books about global domination by Venus fly traps

 

We were free to invent our own courses

skip classes walk out of classes sit in on classes

that we weren’t even taking

free to take the side of Mao Tse-Tung

 

Did I ever tell you about the initials?

 

Actively Irrigate Subtle Plantations

Anything Irritates Shirley’s Piano

Abe’s Integers Smoke Pot

Angels Illuminate Soryl’s Pecadillos

 

We were free to get beat up less than

at Jeffreys, MacKenzie, Fleming

to read any goddamn book we wanted to

I mean truly weird shit

to take three courses a year, or fifteen

and write revolutionary communiqués

to hang a parachute from the Common Room ceiling

I’m serious

because it meant we were alternative

and we were independent

sometimes we studied

and we were never programmed

 

we ate French fries at Dairy Freeze

fried liver and onions in the cafeteria

Carl ate cookies in his office

and then he brushed his teeth

thus providing a lesson

 

Have I mentioned the initials?

Always Investigate Snoopy Parents

Armadillos Invest Snappy Premiums

Africa Israel Switzerland Poland

Asia Istanbul Spain Peru

 

On torn sofas

in the Common Room

we argued sports and politics

under an actual parachute

that hung from the ceiling

a ceiling

a parachute

a fire marshal

 

We were free from beating each other up

free from conveyor belts

sausage education

particle board learning

We were free from Catcher in the Rye

if we wanted to be

free to take a class with a teacher

who’d fold our poems into paper airplanes

and fly them across the room

 

plus we had a parachute

a Common Room

a ceiling

initials

have I told you about the parachute?

 

 

 

 

27 May 2010

Stuart Ross

Over and out.